This may have already been mentioned (I apologize in advance if that is the case), I haven't been on in a long time.  But Calvin gets spanked by 22 on their home floor and only drops 2 spots in the polls? 

I love this mindless banter.  No one on here knows the half of the process, what it entails and how it can benefit different people.  I guess I'm no different, I'm no better but I would like to add the following: 

First of all, the Hope Grant isn't awarded to every student at Hope.  Call the financial aid office and ask them.  Anything that they award is based on financial need.  Yes, people at Hope do pay the full shot, ouch.  The best athlete every to come to Hope paid the full shot and passed on countless d1 offers, from big ten schools, pac 10 schools and would've been a d1 All American.  And sorry friends, he wasn't a basketball player either. 

The goal in any financial aid office is for that school to be affordable for the family of the student (call one and ask).  It's an opportunity more than anything else.  Typically where the gap is generated is when schools offer merit based awards (academic scholarships for all of you struggling to follow along) for a student whose family will not qualify for any need based financial aid.  Now because this is the MIAA forum, why don't you look around the league a little bit at the criteria for these awards.  My guess is you will find some schools will have very clear cut parameters for scholarships.  Others will have 'loop' holes, if you will, with part of the scholarship being based on 'outside activities' or 'leadership' or these types of things.  What the average household does not know is that at the d3 level anything athletic related cannot (or is not supposed) to be counted or even taken into consideration for these types of scholarships.  So that would mean the best athlete in your high school that plays three sports and is captain of all three but does not do anything else outside of the classroom would have ZERO outside involvement to anyone looking to award merit at the d3 level.  Unfortunate?  Very.  It's unfortunate for any school, for any athlete.  But who checks that and how does one school know how much another student is involved and what their criteria involves before awarding a student a merit based award?  Often times one can speculate that  these 'leadership' scholarships exist to help find ways to make sure the right kids have a better chance of coming to their school.  Not any kid, the right kid.

As far as scholarships go, like I said before, go look at the websites for the different schools.  A school should have outlined very clearly what a student needs in order to reach a particular scholarship whether that be a standardized test score, GPA requirement or whatever the case may be.  As the dollar amount increases so should the caliber of student.

It's one of those things that everyone loves to speculate about but no one that posts really knows the facts.  Anyway, I'm no better than anyone else but this is how I understand things.

I am a regular on d3swimming.com  Well, 346 posts strong anyhow.  That may give away who I am but I guess I'm not that worried about it.  One thing I do really enjoy about that site is how easy it is to navigate from thread to thread in a given topic.  Meaning if we wanted to talk about why KVS and GVW were at a game recruiting, that would be its own topic and if you want to talk about who got shafted on All MIAA voting that could be a different thread all within the MIAA forum.  Makes it a little easier to keep up on certain topics when the forums are going crazy and you go away for a weekend and have 11 pages to catch up on.  I am a big fan of both sites and many thanks to Pat Coleman and all the others on this site and Derek Jansen and the others at d3swimming.com

History nothin.  

I've heard time and time again that Calvin haunts Hope in the NCAA tournament.  Call me crazy but I just don't see the ghosts of Calvin bball past coming in and aiding them tonight in the DeVos Fieldhouse.  You can say everything goes out the window in a game like this, much like a Michigan/Ohio St football game but the truth of the matter is Hope is a better team playing in their friendly confines.  Yes, it's difficult to beat a good team three times in the same season but reflecting on what I have heard about the three games is that Hope dominated two of the three and didn't close out the third that they were in control of.  If Calvin wants any chance to win tonight they need to come out on fire like Marcus VanderHeide and the Flying Dutchman did last night and hope to hold on because once the superior team catches their stride, there's no slowing them down.

Hope by double digits.

I've got a serious question I was discussing at work today and I thought this was the best place to get it answered. Heres the dillema, we were trying to figure out who would win a matchup of the Hope Womens bball team, vs. the Calvin mens team. We were having trouble coming up with an answer but decided it would probably be a toss up, giving the advantage to whoever had home court. Heres a few of the matchups that would be seen and who I give the advantage too:

Julie Henderson Vs. Caleb Veldehouse- Slight edge to Veldehouse just because he shaves his legs more often, he also has a better outside jumper, but Julie is better at getting to the hole.

Bria Ebels Vs. Kyle Trewhella- You have got to go Bria on this one, better outside shooter, quicker, shes a better defender, and I'd take her over anyone on either one of these teams in the clutch, except maybe Veldehouse.

Jordyn Boles Vs. Andy Draayer- Pretty even, slight edge to Boles, she can hit an outside shot with somebody in her face and Draayer can't. She also plays great d, gets a lot of steals and deflections. Also  knows how to get to penetrate better than Draayer.

Stacy Warsen Vs. Kyle Snoeyink- Warsen might be a little stronger, but I give a slight advantage to Kyle. Pretty even on the boards and defensively but Snoeyink is a little better shooter. Warsen does know how to do the little things though.

Linda Ebels Vs. Josh Meckes- Once again pretty even, no advantage either way, both score and rebound well. Meckes does have the better leaping ability/shot blocking though.

Bench- Depth is clearly and advantage for the Hope Women, Wood, Noll, and the rest of the girls could dominate Zoerhof, Smith, Chappel, and whoever else KVS runs in off their weak bench.

Coaching- Wow, what a matchup, 2 of the best around at what they do, cannot give an advantage here, they both know how to win.

Overall- Pretty even, slight edge to the Hope Women, but I think home court would be the deciding factor. Nuetral court I go with Hope though.

I think you have a couple oversights here teenwolf.  Three things that weren't even mentioned in this fantasy matchup that should have been, in my own humble opinion are as follows:

Team speed:  Sure you touched on it for a couple individuals but few teams can run the court like Hope's women can.  Lange is an all american in track, Kopke was all state in hs and Ebels might be quicker than both of them.  Not to mention the depth of their bench and the speed, tenacity energy in general coming off it have to give the edge to the Lady Dutch.

Size:  Clearly goes to Calvin.  Hope will have a difficult time stopping any play in the low post.  Look for guards to be posting up and trying to exploit possible mismatches here.  Advantage Calvin.

Leadership and experience.  Hope has to have the nod.  Despite Calvin's late run last year they are still a relatively young team and these youngsters have stepped up time and time again.  But on the whole when you look at Hope's roster and experience, even from their deep bench, it's too much to overcome.  Would be an interesting matchup.  

I don't mean to change topics here but for those of you that have played college basketball and for those of you that have followed it closer and longer than I have....how much of an advantage is playing at home at the d3 level?  We've seen 18+ point wins in both Albion/Hope games by the home team this year.  Tri-State knocked of sixth ranked Albion (at the time) while playing at home.  Hope proved too strong for Calvin earlier this year winning by 18 in DeVos.

Recently I have heard more and more commentators calling the big d1 games say that the biggest home court in all of sports at any level is in college basketball.  Do you all believe that to be true?  As of last tuesday the top 7 teams in the big ten had a combined home record of 74-4 (I could only think of two...when UCLA beat Michigan and when Wisconsin lost to South Dakota State Tech A&M or whatever it was after playing away the night before.  Anyway you look at it, that's pretty impressive though, 74-4 spread out over 7 teams.

To put another twist on this, is this something the NCAA looks at and will simply hand one school the inside track to advancing past the second round of the tournament?

Thanks.

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Ben Wallace, what a great defender, can't make a free throw if his life depended on it.

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Actually Ben Wallace has made 73 free throws to date this season.  Every one of which when his life did not depend on it.